The Trail: A Tale About Discovering God’s Will, by Ed Underwood

[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Tyndale Publishers in exchange for an honest review.]

There is a lot that one can tell about the writer of a book like this. For example, there are a lot of similarities between the author and the narrator of the story. This is not very uncommon, as writers tend to write about what we know best, and that is usually ourselves. In this particular case, there are three main protagonists, Matt and Brenda, a young couple who needs to know God’s will about a possible job and relocation to Pasadena, and who have a lot of other issues they need to deal with (including an emotional affair on the part of the husband between himself and a coworker who is going through a divorce), as well as Sam, who is much like the author in being a firefighter/woodsman who went to seminary and became a minister who seeks to open up others to an appreciation of Christian mysticism through adventure tours in the wilds of Southern California but (like most people, especially ministers) can practice what he preaches a little bit better.

Although there are plenty of writers [1] who can handle the tricky balance between writing a narrative and allowing that narrative to have an allegorical dimension, this book does not reach the levels of Baker or Tolkien or C.S. Lewis. On the contrary, this book reads rather like the “novels” I have read written by business authors who have a particular worldview they wish to discuss in the guise of a novel that is neat and tidy and a bit too controlled [2]. It reminds me, in fact, of the sort of skits I would often have to do in teen Bible study that were written with an obvious moral in mind, and that seemed heavy handed. This does not make the book a bad one, as its points are certainly useful (even if the whole overly repeated “All Is Grace” bit is wildly at variance with the book’s focus on relationships and moral conduct, if not performance-based love), but it does mean that the book is based on a rather heavy tension between the desire of the author to make every character and every situation and every discussion tie in to the larger point, without having enough humility to tell a story, with all of its messy realities and sidebars, allowing it to live and breathe on its own, which is a vastly more effective way to make the point. To use a literary connection, I was looking for a Pride & Prejudice and instead I got a (thankfully much shorter) type of Middlemarch.

This book has nine chapters. Each of them deal with a certain episode in an imaginary wilderness expedition, and deal with “real life” situations in this several-day hike as well as their own personal lives and larger reflections on isolated verses that are designed to give a certain point. The narrator/author has a certain interest in Hebrew and Greek language and a love of unusual and quirky interpretations of scripture, as well as interesting variant readings that show shades of meaning that most people miss when they read over biblical passages. Several times the narrator repeats the main ideas/concepts that we need in order to know God’s will in our lives: trust, relationship, intimacy, timing, protection, encouragement, community, and grace. The ninth chapter shows the narrator struggling to apply these things in his own relationship with a daughter he has estranged through being too bossy, and trying to separate her from the man she loves, which only ended up dividing the two of them and leading her not to return her phone calls. You know, I think I’ve seen this movie a few times myself.

There are, for all of the shortcomings of the narrative and the controlling nature of the author in framing this story a bit too tightly, some very good lessons that can be drawn from this book and that are worthy of deep reflection. One of them is that the guidance of God comes in the context of a relationship, and that it is a flashlight that guides a few steps (if that) at a time, rather than showing all the way at once, requiring us to trust Him and walk in faith. Likewise, it is a good point to remember (because we can sometimes forget) that special revelation is an extra 10% or so of revelation that is given only to those who are following the other 90% of God’s general revelation (which includes such matters as Sabbath observance and avoidance of adultery and fornication and other such matters). Like other books of its kind, it is possible to understand the compelling ideas behind this work, to agree with their importance and to reflect on how to apply them in the messiness and complication of our lives, even if the author’s desire to make his points sometimes overwhelms his narrative skill as a novelist.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/book-review-the-seduction-of-eva-volk/

[2] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/07/18/book-review-the-e-myth-revisited/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/book-review-the-e-myth-manager/